Amelie grabbed my other arm, and before I could so much as grab a breath, I was being pulled through the portal. There was a brief wave of chill, and a feeling that was a little like being pushed from all sides, and then I was stumbling into utter, complete blackness. My other senses went into overdrive. The air smelled stale and heavy, and felt cold and damp, like a cave. Amelie's icy grip on one arm was going to leave bruises, and Hannah Moses's warmer touch on the other seemed light by contrast, although I knew it wasn't.
I could hear myself and Hannah breathing, but there was no sound at all from the vampires. When I tried to speak, Amelie's icecold hand covered my mouth. I nodded convulsively, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as Amelie--I hoped it was still Amelie, anyway--pulled me forward into the dark.
The smells changed from time to time--a whiff of nasty, rotten something, then something else that smelled weirdly like grapes? My imagination conjured up a dead man surrounded by broken bottles of wine, and I couldn't stop it there; the dead man was moving, squirming toward me, and any second now he'd touch me and I'd scream. . . .
It's just your imagination; stop it.
I swallowed and tried to tamp down the panic. It wasn't helping. Justin wouldn't panic. Justin would-- whatever, Justin wouldn't be caught dead roaming around in the dark with a bunch of vampires like this, and I knew it.
It seemed like we went on forever, and then Amelie pulled me to a stop and let go. Losing that support felt as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, and I was really, really grateful for Hannah's grip to tell me there was something else real in the world. Don't let me fall.
And then Hannah's hand went away. A fast tightening of her fingers, and she was gone.
I was floating in total darkness, disconnected, alone. My breath sounded loud as a train in my ears, but it was buried under the thunder of my fast heartbeats. Move, I told myself. Do something!
I whispered, "Hannah?"
Cold hands slapped around me from behind, one pinning my arms to my sides, the other covering my mouth. I was lifted off the ground, and I screamed, a faint buzzing sound like a storm of bees that didn't make it through the muffling gag.
And then I went flying through the air into the darkness . . . and rolled to a stop facedown, on a cold stone floor. There was light here. Faint, but definite, painting the edges of things a pale gray, including the arched mouth of the tunnel at the end of the hall.
I had no idea where I was.
I got quickly to my feet and turned to look behind me. Amelie, pale as a pearl, stepped through the portal, and with her came the other two vampires. Gerard had Hannah Moses's arm gripped in his good hand.
Hannah had a bloody gash on her head, and when Gerard let go, she dropped to her knees, breathing hard. Her eyes looked blank and unfocused.
Amelie whirled, something silver in one hand, and stabbed as something came at her from the dark. It screamed, a thin sound that echoed through the tunnel, and a white hand reached out to grab Amelie's shirt.
The invisible portal slammed shut like an iris, and severed the arm just above the elbow.
Amelie plucked the still-grabbing hand from her shirt, dropped the hand to the ground, and kicked it to the side. When she turned back to the others, there was no expression on her face.
I felt like throwing up. I couldn't take my eyes away from that wiggling, fishpale hand.
"It was necessary to come this way," Amelie said. "Dangerous, but necessary."
"Where are we?" I asked. Amelie gave me a look and ignored me as she took the lead, heading down the hall. Going through this didn't give me any right to ask questions. Of course. "Hannah? Are you okay?"
Hannah waved her hand vaguely, which really wasn't all that confidencebuilding. The vampire Gerard answered for her. "She's fine." Sure, he could talk, having one hand burned to the bone. He'd probably classify himself as fine, too. "Take her," Gerard ordered, and pushed Hannah toward me as he moved to follow Amelie. The other bodyguard--what was his name?--moved with him, as if they were an old, practiced team.
Hannah was heavy, but she pulled herself back on her own center of gravity after a breath or two. "I'm fine," she said, and gave me a reassuring grin. "Damn. That was not a walk in the park."
"You should meet my boyfriend," I said. "You two are both masters of understatement."
I thought Hannah wanted to laugh, but instead, she just nodded and patted me on the shoulder. "Watch the sides," she said. "We're just starting on this thing."
That was an easy job, because there was nothing to watch on the sides. We were, after all, in a tunnel. Hannah, it appeared, was the rear guard, and she seemed to take it very seriously, although it looked like Amelie had slammed the doorway behind us pretty hard, with prejudice. I hope we don't have to go back that way, I thought, and shivered at the sight of that pale severed hand behind us. It had finally stopped moving. I really, really hope we don't have to go back there.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Amelie seemed to pause for a moment, and then disappeared to the right, around the corner, with her two vampire bodyguards in flying formation behind her. Hannah and me hurried to keep up, and emerged into another hallway, this one square instead of arched, and paneled in rich, dark wood. There were paintings on the walls--old ones, I thought--of pale people lit by candlelight, dressed in about a thousand pounds of costume and rice white makeup and wigs.
I stopped and backed up, staring at one.
"What?" Hannah growled.
"That's her. Amelie." It definitely was, only instead of the Princess Gracestyle clothes she wore now, in the picture she was wearing an elaborate sky blue satin dress, cut way low over her breasts. She was wearing a big white wig, and staring out of the canvas in an eerily familiar way.
"Art appreciation later, Ana. We need to go."
That was true, beyond any argument, but I kept throwing glances at the paintings as we passed. One looked like it could have been Oliver, from about four hundred years ago. One more modern one looked almost like Myrnin. It's the vampire museum, I realized. It's their history. There were glass cases lining the hall ahead, filled with books and papers and jewelry, clothing, and musical instruments. All the fine and fabulous things gathered through their long, long lives.
Ahead, the three vampires came to a sudden, motionless halt, and Hannah grabbed me by the arm to pull me out of the way, against the wall. "What's happening?" I whispered.
"Sorting credentials."
I didn't know what that meant, exactly, but when I risked moving out just a bit to see what was happening, I saw that there were lots of other vampires in here--about a hundred of them, some sitting down and obviously hurt. There were humans, too, mostly standing together and looking nervous, which seemed reasonable.
If these were Bishop's people, our little rescue party was in serious trouble.
Amelie exchanged some quiet words with the vampire who seemed to be in charge, and Gerard and his partner visibly relaxed. That settled the friendorfoe question, apparently; Amelie turned and nodded to me, and me and Hannah edged out from behind the glass cases to join them.
Amelie made a gesture, and immediately several vampires peeled off from the group and joined her in a distant corner.
"What's going on?" I asked, and stared around me. Most of the vampires were still dressed in the costumes they'd worn to Bishop's welcome feast, but a few were in more military dress--black, mostly, but some in camouflage.
"It's a rally point," Hannah said. "She's talking strategy, probably. Those would be her captains. Notice there aren't any humans with her?"
I did. It wasn't exactly a pleasant sensation, the doubt that boiled up inside.
Whatever orders Amelie delivered, it didn't take long. One by one, the vampires nodded and peeled off from the meeting, gathered up followers--including humans this time--and departed. By the time Amelie had dispatched the last group, there were only about ten people left I didn't know, and they were all standing together.
Amelie came back to us, saw the group of humans and vamps, and nodded toward them.
"Ana, this is Theodosius Goldman," Amelie said. "Theo, he prefers to be called. These are his family."
Family? That was a shock, because there were so many of them. Theo seemed to be kind of middleaged, with graying, curly hair and a face that, except for its vampiric pallor, seemed kind of . . . nice.
"May I present my wife, Patience?" he said with the kind of old manners I had only seen on Masterpiece Theater. "Our sons, Virgil and Clarence. Their wives, Ida and Minnie." There were more vampires bowing, or in the case of the one guy down on the floor, with his head held in the lap of a female vamp, waving. "And their children."
Evidently the grandkids didn't merit individual introductions. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, all pale like their relatives. They seemed younger than me, at least physically; I guessed the littler girl was probably about twelve, the older boy around fifteen.
The older boy and girl glared at me, as if I were personally responsible for the mess they were in, but I was too busy imagining how a whole family--down to grandkids--could all be made vampires like this.
Theo, evidently, could see all that in my expression, because he said, "We were made eternal a long time ago, my girl, by"--he cast a quick look at Amelie, who nodded--"by her father, Bishop. It was a joke of his, you see, that we should all be together for all time." He really did have a kind face, I thought, and his smile was kind of tragic. "The joke turned on him, though. We refused to let it destroy us. Amelie showed us we did not have to kill to survive, and so we were able to keep our faith as well as our lives."
"Your faith?"
"It's a very old faith," Theo said. "And today is our Sabbath."
I blinked. "Oh. You're Jewish?"
He nodded, eyes fixed on me. "We found a refuge here, in Morganville. A place where we could live in peace, both with our nature and our God."
Amelie said, softly, "But will you fight for it now, Theo? This place that gave you refuge?"
He held out his hand. His wife's cool white fingers closed around it. She was a delicate china doll of a woman, with masses of sleek black hair piled on top of her head. "Not today."
"I'm sure God would understand if you broke the Sabbath under these circumstances."
"I'm sure he would. God is forgiving, or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think." He shook his head again, very regretfully. "We cannot fight, Amelie. Not today. And I would prefer not to fight at all."
"If you think you can stay neutral in this, you're wrong. I will respect your wishes. My father will not."
Theo's face hardened. "If your father threatens my family again, then we will fight. But until he comes for us, until he shows us the sword, we will not take up arms against him."
Gerard snorted, which proved what he thought about it; I wasn't much surprised. He seemed like a practical sort of guy. Amelie simply nodded. "I can't force you, and I wouldn't. But be careful. I cannot spare anyone to help you. You should be safe enough here, for a time. If any others come through, send them out to guard the power station and the campus." She allowed her gaze to move beyond Theo, to touch the three humans huddled in the far corner of the room, under another painting, a big one. "Are these under your Protection?"
Theo shrugged. "They asked to join us."
"Theo."
"I will defend them if someone tries to harm them." Theo pitched his voice lower. "Also, we may need them, if we can't get supplies."
I went cold. For all his kind face and smile, Theo was talking about using those people as portable blood banks.
"I don't want to do it," Theo continued, "but if things go against us, I have to think of my children. You understand."
"I do," Amelie said. Her face was back to a blank mask that gave away nothing of how she felt about it. "I have never told you what to do, and I will not now. But by the laws of this town, if you place these humans under your Protection, you owe them certain duties. You know that."
Another shrug, and Theo held out his hands to show he was helpless. "Family comes first," he said. "I have always told you so."
"Some of us," Amelie said, "are not so fortunate in our choice of families."
She turned away from Theo without waiting for his response--if he'd been intending to give one--and without so much as a pause, slammed her fist into a glassfronted wall box labeled EMERGENCY USE ONLY three steps to the right. It shattered in a loud clatter, and Amelie shook shards of glass from her skin.
She reached into the box and took out . . . I blinked. "Is that a paintball gun?"
Amelie handed it to Hannah, who handled it like a professional. "It fires pellets loaded with silver powder," she said. "Very dangerous to us. Be careful where you aim."
"Always am," Hannah said. "Extra magazines?"
Amelie retrieved them from the case and handed them over. I noticed that she protected herself even from a casual touch, with a fold of fabric over her fingers. "There are ten shots per magazine," she said. "There is one already loaded, and six more here."
"Well," Hannah said, "any problem I can't solve with seventy shots is probably going to kill us, anyway."
"Ana," Amelie said, and handed over a small, sealed vial. "Silver powder, packed under pressure. It will explode on impact, so be very careful with it. If you throw it, there is a wide dispersal through the air. It can hurt your friends as much as your enemies."
There were real uses for silver powder, like coating parts in computers; I supposed it wasn't exactly restricted, but I was surprised the vampires were progressive enough to lay in a supply. Amelie raised pale eyebrows at me.
"You've been expecting this," I said.
"Not in detail. But I've learned through my life that such preparations are never wasted, in the end. Sometime, somewhere, life always comes to a fight, and peace always comes to an end."
Theo said, very quietly, "Amen."